The Risale-i Nur: A Revolution of

Belief
BY DR. COLIN TURNER
As someone born and raised in Britain, I am often asked what we as
Muslims have to offer to the West. But before I answer, I should like to
ask a question myself: Are we Muslims because we believe in Allah, or do
we believe in Allah because we are Muslims?
The question occurred to me during a march through the streets of
London, over a decade ago, to protest against the Russian occupation of
Afghanistan. I'd made a formal conversion to Islam several years prior to
this, and it wasn't my first demonstration. There were banners and
placards and much shouting and chanting. And in between "Russians
out," "Death to Brezhnev," and "Muslims of Afghanistan rise up," we
shouted our own Islamic slogans: Allahu Akbar and La ilaha illa Allah.
Towards the end of the demonstration I was approached by a young man
who introduced himself as someone interested in Islam. "Excuse me," he
said, "but what is the meaning of La ilaha illa Allah?"
Without a moment's hesitation I answered, "There is no god but Allah."
'Tm not asking you to translate it," he said, 'Tm asking you to tell me
what it really means." There was a long awkward silence as it dawned on
me that I was unable to answer him.
You are no doubt thinking, "What kind of Muslim is it that does not know
the real meaning of La ilaha illa Allah?" To this I would have to say: a
typical one. That evening I pondered my ignorance; being in the majority
didn't help, it simply made me more depressed.
So how did I become a Muslim? You've no doubt heard the anecdote
about Nasreddin Hoja. A friend of his called on him one day and found
Hoja sitting in front of a large basket of chilies. His eyes were red and
swollen, blood dripped from his gums and tears from his eyes. Yet he
carried on eating. Why are you torturing yourself, his friend asked.
Because, said Nasreddin Hoja, biting into another pepper, I'm hoping one
of them will be sweet.
I had been in the same position myself. No ideology or alternative life-
style that I tried could satisfy the inner need for something more,
something worth existing for, that elusive something that is always just
around the comer but never seems to appear. Disenchanted with every
aspect of my life, I left Britain and somehow drifted towards the Middle
East. It was not a conscious choice. And it was there that I found the
sweet chili pepper.
Islam simply made sense, in a way that nothing else ever had. It had roles
of government, it had an economic system, it had regulations covering
every facet of day-to-day existence. It was egalitarian and addressed to
all races, and it was clear and easy to understand. Oh, and it has a God,
One God, in whom I had always vaguely believed. That was that. I said La
ilaha illa Allah and I was part of the community. For the first time in my
life I belonged.
New converts are invariably enthusiastic to know as much as possible
about their religion in the shortest possible time. In the few years that
followed, my library grew rapidly. There was so much to learn, and so
many books ready to teach. Books on the history of Islam, the economic
system of Islam, the concept of government in Islam; countless manuals
of Islamic jurisprudence, and, best of all, books on Islam and revolution,
on how Muslims were to rise up and establish Islamic governments,
Islamic republics. When I returned to Britain in early '79 to begin a
University course, I was ready to introduce Islam to the West.
It was to these books that I turned for an answer to the question "What
is the meaning of La ilaha illa Allah?" Again I was disappointed. The books
were about Islam, not about Allah. They covered every subject you could
possibly imagine except for the one which really mattered. I put the
question to the imam at the University mosque. He made an excuse and
left. Then a brother who had overheard my impertinent question to the
imam came over and said: "I have a tafsir of La ilaha illa Allah. If you like
we could read it together." I imagined that it would be ten or twenty
pages at the most. It turned out to have over 5000 pages, in several
books. It was, as I'm sure you're aware, the Risale-i Nur by Ustad
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.
Initially, I dismissed the Risale-i Nur as mysticism. My brother pointed out
that this was the reaction of a closed mind. Without the intellectual
crutches provided by my old books, I felt ignorant and lost. It was a
completely new language, a totally new vision. My brother sensed my
unease. He said: "Don't worry. The books you have read before all have
their place. They are the skin. But this," he said, tapping a copy of The
Supreme Sign, "this is the fruit." So we began to read, this time in the
name of Allah, and slowly things began to fall into place.
Each of us is born in total ignorance; the desire to know ourselves and
our world is an innate one. Thus "Who am I? Where did I come from?
What is this place in which I find myself? What is my duty here? Who is
responsible for bringing me into existence'?" -- these are questions which
each of us answers in his own way, either through direct observation or
through blind acceptance of the answers suggested by others. And how
one lives one's life, the criterion by which one acts in this world, depends
totally on the nature of those answers. The Supreme Sign is no less than
a guided tour of the cosmos, and the traveler is one who is seeking
answers to these questions.
The Supreme Sign does not presuppose belief in God; rather it travels
from the created to the Creator. And it affirms that anyone who sincerely
wishes to answer the questions, and who looks upon the created world
as it is, and not as he wishes or imagines it to be, must inevitably come to
the conclusion La ilaha illa Allah. For he will see order and harmony,
beauty and equilibrium, justice and mercy, dominicality and munificence;
and at the same time he will realize that those attributes are pointing not
to the created beings themselves but to a Reality in which all of these
attributes exist in perfection and absoluteness. He will see that the
created world is thus a book of names, an index, which seek to tell about
its Owner.
In Nature, Cause or Effect?
Bediuzzaman takes the interpretation of La ilaha illa Allah even further.
The notion that he examines is that of causality, the cornerstone of
materialism and the pillar upon which modern science has been
constructed. Belief in causality gives rise to statements such as: It is
natural; Nature created it; it happened by chance, and so on. With
reasoned arguments, Bediuzzaman explodes the myth of causality and
demonstrates that those who adhere to-this belief are looking at the
cosmos not as it actually is, or how it appears to be, but how they would
like to think it is.
In Tabiat Risalesi [Nature, Cause or Effect?], Bediuzzaman demonstrates
that all beings, on all levels, are interrelated, interconnected and
interdependent, like concentric or intersecting circles. He shows that
beings come into existence as though from nowhere, and, during their
brief lives, each with its own particular purpose, goal and mission, act as
mirrors in which various attributes, and countless configurations of
names, are displayed. Their createdness, transience, impotence and
contingence, their total dependence on factors other than themselves
prove beyond doubt that they cannot be the owners of that which they
appear to possess, let alone bestow attributes of perfection on beings
that are similar to or greater than themselves.
The materialists however, see things differently -- they do not see
different things. They ask us to believe that this cosmos, whose innate
order and harmony they do not deny, is ultimately the work of chance.
Of chaos and disorder, of sheer accident. They then ask us to believe that
this cosmos is sustained by the mechanistic interplay of causes --
whatever they may be, and not even the materialists know for sure --
causes which are themselves created, impotent, ignorant, transient and
purposeless, but which somehow contrive, through laws which appeared
out of nowhere, to produce the orderly works of art of symphonies of
harmony and equilibrium that we see and hear around us.
Like Abraham in the house of idols, Bediuzzaman destroys these myths
and superstitions. Given that all things are inter-connected, he reiterates,
whatever it is that brings existence to the seed of a flower must also be
responsible for the flower itself; and given their interdependence,
whatever brings into existence the flower must also be responsible for
the tree; and given the fact that they are interrelated, whatever brings
into existence the tree must 'also be responsible for the forest, and so
on. Thus to be able to create a single atom, one must also be able to
create the whole cosmos. That is surely a tall order for a cause which is
blind, impotent, transient, dependent and devoid of knowledge of our
purpose.
More and more scientists are beginning to realize that the mechanistic
theories of old are simply no longer sustainable. Faced with beauty,
awesomeness, order, harmony, symmetry and purpose, attempts to
explain away creation by evoking the idea of chance and causality are
becoming increasingly untenable. Many are so outraged at the imminent
collapse of their old gods that they lapse into hysteria:
One celebrated biologist -- and biology is still the most rigidly mechanistic
of disciplines -- is on record as having said "Funnily, the more beauty and
harmony I discover in the cosmos, the more convinced I become of its
meaninglessness." The poor man seems not to have understood that if
everything is meaningless, his own effect to that is equally so. Another
famous -- or should I say infamous -- scientist, also a biologist, asserts
that the existence of beings, and in particular the phenomenon of form,
can in no way be attributed to the random motions of blind, unknowing
and impotent causes. He is not alone in his thinking, but he is the first
eminent Western biologist to state such beliefs openly. Interestingly
enough, he likens the state of the Western scientific fraternity to Russia
under Brezhnev.
The mechanistic theory is the rigid, all-powerful orthodoxy to which all
scientists - biologists in particular - must bow down if they are to retain
their credibility and their jobs. And so they are forced to live a fearful
charade, shouting their loyalty in public but whispering their real
thoughts in private. When the book in which he attacks causality was
published, the magazine The New Scientist described it as a "candidate
for burning." Since then, the author of this book has become an outcast,
the Salman Rushdie of Western science.
Such widely differing opinions as to the viability of the causal hypothesis
show that the attribution of creative power to Nature or natural laws is
by no means .the inevitable corollary of objective, scientific investigation.
It is no more than a personal opinion. Similarly, denial of the Creator of
the cosmos, who has placed apparent causes there as veils to cover His
hand of power, is not an act of reason but an act of will. In short,
causality is a crude and cunning device with which man distributes the
property of the Creator among the created in order that he might set
himself up as absolute owner and ruler of all that he has, and all that he
is.
My aim was not to summarize the Risale-i Nur, but to show how far
removed my previous conceptions about Allah were before reading this
work. I thought that by saying La ilaha illa Allah, I had said all there was to
be said about Allah. Thanks to the Risale-i Nur, I was now able to see that
previously, God had been something that I had brought in to complete
the occasion, an unknown factor placed almost arbitrarily at the
beginning of creation to avoid the impossibility of infinite regression. He
had been the 'First Cause,' the 'Prime Mover,' a veritable 'God of the
gaps.' He had been rather a constitutional monarch of the English variety,
who must be treated with the utmost respect but not allowed to
interfere in the affairs of everyday life.
Inspired by the verse La ilaha illa Allah, the Risale-i Nut shows that the
signs of God, these mirrors of His Names and attributes, are revealed to
us constantly in new and ever- changing forms and configurations,
eliciting acknowledgment, acceptance, submission, love and worship. The
Risale-i Nur showed that there is a distinct process involved in becoming
Muslim in the true sense of the word: contemplation to know-ledge,
knowledge to affirmation, affirmation to belief or conviction, and from
conviction to submission. And since each new moment, each new day,
sees the revelation of fresh aspects of Divine truth, this process is a
continuous one. The external practices of Islam, the formal acts of
worship, are thus in a sense static. Belief, however, is subject to increase
or decrease, depending on the continuance of the process I have just
mentioned. Thus it is the reality of belief that deserves most of our
attention; from there the realities of Islam will follow on inevitably.
Thus I can say that I had been a Muslim but not a believer; that which I
had assumed was belief was in reality nothing more than the inability to
deny. Bediuzzaman was not responsible for introducing me to Islam --
which anyone could have done -- but for introducing me to belief. Belief
through investigation, not through imitation.
Let's return now to the question: What do we, as Muslims, have to offer
to the West. The answer is: everything and nothing. We have belief and
Islam, which is everything; and we have our understanding and
interpretation of Islam, which in most cases amounts nothing much at all.
As is evident from the books which introduced me to Islam, almost
everything that has been written with the West in mind has been done
more or less on the level of some benign cultural exchange. Almost
invariably the central question of belief has been glossed over or ignored
completely.
In the Qur'an, the word 'Allah' appears more than 2500 times, the word
'Islam' less than ten. In a good deal of modern Muslim writing, the ratio is
roughly reversed. In the Qur'an, the ratio between iman and Islam is 5:1
in favor of iman. In Arabic book titles until the end of the 19th century,
Islam slightly outnumbers iman in a ratio of 3:2. By the Sixties, this has
had jumped to 13:1, and today it is undoubtedly higher. Inevitably, then,
the approach to the West has centered on Islam as a system, as an
alternative 'ideology', presented almost totally without reference to the
realities of belief.
Another reason why our approach to the West has made little headway is
that we have misunderstood the West. The West is not only a
geopolitical entity, it is also a metaphor. Geographically, the West was
the first place to witness a mass revolt against the Divine. Modem
Western civilization is the first of which we have knowledge that does not
have some formal structure of religious belief at its heart. The West is
thus a metaphor for the setting of the sun of religious belief; a metaphor
for the eclipse of God. And since this eclipse is no longer confined to the
geopolitical West, one may say that wherever the truths of belief have
been discarded, there is the West. Thus the West should be seen as a
state of mind, a disease, an aberration. The root cause of this, as
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi points out, is the disease of self-worship, of 'ENE'
(Ana, the T or ego).
From the beginning of the Renaissance, man in the West has been his
own point of reference, the center of his own universe, the sole criterion
by which he lives out his pathetic life. He has stolen the clothes of the
Divine Names and has dressed himself in them and paraded as God. The
problem is that they do not fit, and cannot fit.
Unwilling to accept that his duty is merely to reflect the Divine attributes
in the name of the Creator and according to His Will, he claims them as
his own property and spends a lifetime trying to add to his imaginary
possessions. Seeking the infinite from the finite drags him into a fierce
and often murderous competition with his fellow beings. Man's endless
desires are heightened by the fact that he is limited, impotent and
dependent, and bound one day to give up all that he imagined was his
and face annihilation. His limitations and deficiencies, which should serve
to remind him of his absolute dependence and impotence, he contrives
to conceal. Western man frees from ill thoughts of his ultimate destiny,
smothers his innate ability to know and love the Creator, to recognize
that man is nothing and can have nothing of his own.
The secular, self-absorbed society of the West is designed on all levels to
blind and stupefy. T0 mask the fact that the religion of the self has failed
to live up to its promises; that the secular trinity of 'unlimited progress,
absolute freedom and unrestricted happiness' is as meaningless as the
Christian Trinity discarded centuries ago. To cover up the fact that
economic and scientific progress which has secular humanism as its
underlying ethos, has turned the West into a spiritual wasteland and
ravaged generation after generation. Yet there are those who are
beginning to awake, to realize the illusion under which they have been
living. It is to these that the disease of ENE must be pointed out. It is no
use telling one who is afflicted with this disease that the Islamic
economic or judicial system is the most egalitarian or most just. You
cannot cure a man suffering from cancer by giving him a new coat. What
is needed is a correct diagnosis, radical surgery and constant back-up
treatment. The Risale-i Nur provides all of these.
You will recall that I dismissed the Risale-i Nur initially as mysticism, and I
have also heard others describe it thus. The troth is otherwise, for there
is nothing esoteric about the stark choice Said Nursi puts before us: belief
or unbelief, eternal felicity or eternal wretchedness, salvation or
perdition, heaven or hell -- in this world and the next.
I have also heard the Risale-i Nur described as revolutionary, and with
this I agree. But I am not talking about revolution in the political sense of
the word. There is no mention of this in the Risale-i Nut, although I am
sure that had Bediuzzaman advocated the violent overthrow of all
secular governments, the Risale-i Nur would be required reading in every
Western university, and Bediuzzaman would be a household name in the
West.
After all, the West has a soft spot for extremism, especially when
flavored with religion. What can be better, more beautiful, more
delicious in the eyes of the Western media than the sight of thousands of
angry Muslims in some far-off, violent city screaming "Death to
America!" and demanding revolution and the re-introduction of the
Shari'a? The West no longer has to go to the trouble of misrepresenting
Islam: we do it for them, and they simply film it for their own
consumption. I remember watching such a demonstration over a decade
ago, in a place where America is known as the great Satan. What struck
me at the time was the fact that maybe 70% of the crowd were dressed
in Levis, and that every cigarette smoked as the demonstration dispersed
was either a Marlborough or a Winston. As one hand cuts a or claims to
cut the ties that bind us to the West, the other hand fastens them even
tighter.
Yet still we claim that it is time for action, that we have spoken enough.
I've actually heard this said in reference to the Risale-i Nur. It is all talk,
someone said, and no action. But we have not talked, we have merely
moaned and wailed. And because we have not talked, not conversed,
brother to brother, believer to believer, Muslim to Muslim, in the name
of Allah, in the language of the Qur'an and in the language of the book of
creation, then when we act we set incorrectly, without authority, without
discipline, without a true criterion and frame of reference. And ultimately
without any lasting result. The West understands this perfectly.
No, the kind of revolution clamoured for on the streets of Tehran, Cairo
or Algiers is not the kind of 'revolution that Bediuzzaman advocates. The
kind of revolution envisaged by the Risale-i Nur is a revolution of the
mind, of the heart, of the soul and the spirit. It is not an Islamic
revolution but a revolution of belief. As such it works on two levels: it is
designed to lead Muslims from belief by imitation to belief through
investigation, and to lead unbelievers from worship of the self to worship
of Allah. And that is why, in the eyes of those who control the West, a
work such as the Risale-i Nur is deadly.
Finally, I would say this: After many years of searching and comparing, I
can say that the Risale-i Nur is the only self-contained, comprehensive
Islamic work that sees the cosmos as it actually is, presents the reality of
belief as it truly is, interprets the Qur'an as our Prophet intended,
diagnoses the real and very dangerous diseases that afflict modern man,
and offers a cure. A work such as the Risale-i Nur, which reflects the light
of the Qur'an and illuminates the cosmos, cannot be ignored. For only
Islam stands between modern man and catastrophe, and I believe that
the future of Islam depends on the Risale-i Nur and on those who follow
and are inspired by its teachings.

17.10.2018
NO, IT IS NOT a case of 'my truth' and 'your truth'. The truth is the truth;
it is not an issue of relativity. What is yours and mine are perceptions, not
truths.
Let me explain. There are two people in a room: one thinks it's really
cold; the other thinks it's too warm. Which perception accords with the
truth? The cold person's perception of truth is as valid as the warm
person's perception of the truth, but there is actually only one, objective
truth: the room is 16 degrees centigrade, for example. There has to be an
objective truth above and beyond the subjective experiences and
perceptions of individuals.

16.10.2018
THE TRUE LOVER of God is not
someone who locks himself away to
pray and fast all the time, avoiding
others in an attempt to commune
with 'the One'. The true lover of God
is someone who lives alongside
other people, coming and going,
eating and sleeping, buying and
selling, marrying and having children, laughing and crying, playing and
chatting - but not for one moment forgetting his Beloved.

15.10.2018
IT IS DIFFICULT not to get annoyed or angry when people don't
understand or accept the truth when it is shown or told to them.
But then I realize that we should have no expectations. If people accept,
they accept; if they reject, so be it. We are not here to tell the truth to
people in order for them to accept it. We are here to tell the truth
because it is the truth, and because the truth has to be told. The duty of
a fire is to burn, and not to worry whether people use its flames to warm
themselves or to burn down the building.

13.10.2018
DON'T SAY, 'The flower is beautiful'.
Say, 'The flower has been created
beautifully'.
If we don't want our minds to
become secularised, we have to
change the way we speak. It may
seem trivial and insignificant, but it's
actually a matter of spiritual life and
death.

11.10.2018
THE HUMAN EYE cannot see itself without the aid of a mirror.
Similarly, the human soul cannot see itself without the aid of a mirror.
That mirror is the soul of other human beings. We are social animals and
we know ourselves only through the impact that we have on others.
It must be for this reason that they say, 'The believer is mirror to the
believer.'

10.10.2018
THE DARK SIDE OF MODERN CIVILISATION draws upon a genius that is
nothing less than satanic. Using naturalism, materialism, atheism, vice
and misguidance, modern civilisation has trapped the human spirit in a
kind of living hell. It has taken humankind, the most noble of all beings,
and it has reduced him to the lowest of the low, infecting him with
severe diseases of the soul and reducing him to the lowest level of
animality.
But then - and here is the mark of its evil genius - it tells him that modern
civilisation has the remedy for his diseases! It tells him that this remedy is
to be found in the illusion of entertainment, amusement and those mind-
numbing diversions which temporarily anaesthetise the senses. What
mankind fails to understand is that this 'remedy' is actually worse than
the diseases that it is supposed to be curing.
But this 'remedy' will eventually be the death of those who prescribe it.
Such is the road that modern civilisation has opened up for mankind, and
the 'happiness' that it has created for him...

9.10.2018
IF YOU ARE in a forest and someone tells you, 'Go and search for the
trees!', you would consider him insane. Why, then, do we talk about
'searching for God'?
One of the greatest tricks that Satan plays on us is fooling us into thinking
that God is so distant, or so hidden, that He has to be 'searched for'.
8.10.2018
On role models
The prophets in our tradition are the best role models for our youth. But
the prophets in our tradition are largely unknown. That is to say, we have
not introduced our prophets correctly. We know their names, but we do
not know their stories, their struggles, their life experiences. We
understand them somehow as 'holy figures', mention of whose names
must always be followed by the words 'May peace and blessings.... etc.'.
We know them as pious, otherworldly individuals rather than every day,
flesh-and-blood human beings.
Who is to blame for this? Our scholars, our imams, our educators - they
must take a large share of the blame. For it is they who are largely
responsible for painting a picture of prophethood that is far removed
from everyday human concerns. For the vast majority of Muslims, the
prophets are distant, infallible souls who converse with angels, rather
than flawed, credible human beings who have human desires and
aspirations, who have struggles and anxieties, and who for the most part
live their lives at the very heart of their communities. Our scholars have
turned the prophets into distant, inaccessible figures of angel-like
demeanour who have very little in common with ordinary Muslims and
ordinary Muslim lives. As parents, we too must take some of the blame if
we are portraying the prophets in the same way that they are portrayed
by those who educated us.

Until our youth are able to access a precise and honest picture of our
prophets as ordinary human beings who are impeccable rather than
infallible, our youth will find nothing in the prophetic figure to aspire to
or to emulate. In this case, it is understandable that they should look
elsewhere for inspiration and objects of adulation and emulation.
8.10.2018
On fighting for money
When his enemy spat at him during battle, Imam Ali (a.s.) put down his
weapon and waited. When he was asked why he did this, he replied: "I
wanted to make sure that I wasn't striking the enemy out of personal
spite. I wanted to wait for my anger to pass before I struck him again."
When our example is Imam Ali (a.s.) and those like him, what need do we
have of violent sportsmen to provide us with role models? What need do
we have to cheer on some fighter in a ring, kicking and punching for
money? Where is the dignity in this? Where is the love and the nobility in
this? Are boxing and other forms of violent sporting confrontation even
permitted in our tradition? I think not. We are told that if we have to
strike the enemy, not to strike at the face. The face is a noble creation of
the All-Wise Artist, who fashions the faces of his servants with supreme
artistry and sublime beauty. What meaning does it have to reduce some
poor man's face to a bloody pulp, all in the name of 'sport'. What sport?
What enjoyment? What humanity?
Are we as Muslims really so impoverished when it comes to role models?

7.10.2018
THE DIFFERENCE between self-worship and God-worship is that God-
worship involves only One master, while self-worship involves thousands.
If the self were truly free, this would not be the case. But the self is
chained to habit, to peer pressure, to the dictates of advertising and
social engineering, as well as the dictates of the lower passions. Since this
is the case, the self actually has multiple masters. And so to serve the self
is to serve countless different gods, each with their own demands, while
serving the Creator is to serve only One.

6.10.2018
WHEN THE CREATOR COMMANDED the angels to bow down before
Adam, the angels all obeyed; only Iblis, whose position was similar to that
of the angels, refused. When the Creator asked Iblis what it was that
prevented him from obeying, the first word that Iblis uttered was, "I....".
And thus it was at this point that the 'I' - the ego - first appeared...and it
has prevented countless souls from obeying ever since.
4.10.2018

On Purity and Uniqueness

It is often said that people worship the Creator without knowing it,
because they are attracted to His names and attributes. Humankind’s
obsession with beauty, for instance, is an example of the innate
attraction that we feel towards beautiful things. And the beauty in things
is nothing more than a pale shadow of the reflection of the manifestation
of His beauty.
Two other qualities which attract the human mind and heart are purity
and uniqueness, and I can think of no-one for whom these perfections
are not appealing on some level. People pay high prices for things that
are pure – things which are not mixed or alloyed with other things. 24
karat gold, for example, is supposedly gold that is 100% gold, free from
other metals and thus ‘pure’. 18 karat gold is gold that is 18 parts gold
and 6 parts some other metal, such as copper. People are ready to pay
high prices for pure gold, for pure honey, and for many other items which
have not been mixed or adulterated with other substances. Purity, or
fineness, is something that all human beings love. And purity of spirit is
the most prized purity of all.
Similarly, human beings put a higher value on an item that is scarce than
they do on an item which is abundant. Diamonds, for example, are more
valuable than ordinary rocks and stones because they are relatively
scarce, while ordinary rocks are abundant. And if there is something in
the world which is absolutely unlike anything else, it is said to be unique.
Human beings love uniqueness, and often pay great amounts of money
to be able to say that they are the owner of the only X, Y or Z in the
world.
Human love of purity and uniqueness reflects the fact that there is only
one Creator, and that the Creator is ‘pure’ in the sense that He is not a
compound being and that He is not tainted by having peers, partners or
helpers. He is pure, simple and unique, and we as His created servants
are innately and understandably attracted to purity, simplicity and
uniqueness.
3.10.2018
AND THE CREATOR SAID, "I was a Hidden Treasure and I wanted to be
known. And so I created mankind so that he would know, love and
worship me."
This is not a Tradition, but it is sound in meaning, as the teachings of
countless scholars through the ages will testify. Furthermore, the verb
'was' can be understood as 'is' and 'will be'. Which means that not only
was the Creator a Hidden Treasure 'back then', but also He is a Hidden
Treasure now, and always will be. Human existence is predicated on the
search for that Hidden Treasure, the uncovering of the seventy thousand
veils of darkness and the seventy thousand veils of light, which cover the
'hand of Power' of the Divine.
The Creator wants, has always wanted and will always want to be
'discovered'. It is the discovery of the Divine which is our task while on
earth. And the discovery of the Divine depends very much on the
discovery of the truth that lies within one's own soul and 'on the
horizons'.
Life is a search that never ends, a journey towards the unveiling of an
enigma, a 'migration' from the finite to the Infinite and from the limited
to the Absolute. Life is an investigation which is designed to uncover the
path which leads us towards our true Home...
2.10.2018
TO SAY 'God is the greatest' should
not imply that God is greater than
any other thing, because God is not
a 'thing' to be compared or assessed
with other things. To say that 'God is
greater' means that God is too great
to be perceived by the senses. It
means that He is too great to be
understood by common logic or
reason. It means that He is too great
to known as He is by anything that is other than Him. Indeed, the only
one who truly knows God is God Himself.

1.10.2018
MANY PEOPLE who neglect the prayers, or the abstaining in Ramadan,
say, "What possible need does the Creator have of our worship that He
should threaten those who abandon prayer and fasting with the terrible
punishments of hell?"
The answer is simple: The Creator has absolutely no need of your
worship. Nor does He need anything else, for that matter. No, it is YOU
who needs to worship, because in reality you are sick. You are sick, and
worship is a remedy for your spiritual illnesses and your many wounds.
Now, if a sick person were to ask the doctor, "Why do you need me to
take this medicine?", you can see how idiotic that would sound!

SEPTEMBER WORDS
30.09.2018
THE `HEAVENS AND THE EARTH' symbolise materiality and
immateriality. The 'earth' symbolises materiality and the 'heavens'
symbolise two kinds of immateriality: the relative unseen, which is the
world of the spirit and angels (malakut); and the world of the absolute
unseen, which is the world of the Divine essence.
The reality is the reality of materiality and two kinds of immateriality, but
since we are limited, finite creatures, we know this reality as 'the
heavens and the earth'. The Quran speaks in allegories, in symbols, so
that we may understand. Otherwise how are limited, finite beings like us
supposed to understand an unlimited, absolute Being like the Creator?
Everything is a sign, a symbol, and our job is to read, to decipher and to
interpret. That is our task, that is our project while we are here on
'earth'.

29.09.2018
ON THE ORIGINS OF THE QURAN
Some scholars reject that idea that the Quran was revealed, claiming that
it was the work of some kind of 'editorial board' in 9th century Baghdad.
But if an editorial board had written the Quran, it would have looked very
different to how it looks now. For instance, it would have had a
beginning, a middle and an end. The Quran does not have that form. It
would have reflected the language and the style of 9th century writing,
but the Quran does not use that language or reflect that style. It would
have mentioned Muhammad (s.a.w.) by name repeatedly, but the Quran
does not do that: in fact, it mentions him by name only four times. It
would have discussed sectarian issues at length, but the Quran does not
do that. It would have begun at the beginning of creation, like the Torah,
but the Quran does not begin at the beginning.
For these and other reasons, the Quran could not have been the work of
an 'editorial board' in 9th century Baghdad. More importantly, on many
levels the Quran is a very strange book - far too strange to be the product
of a human mind!

28.09.2018
SAID NURSI ON MODERN CIVILISATION
Modern civilisation is built on five negative principles.
Firstly, its point of support is force instead of right, and the signs of force
are aggression and hostility, which lead to treachery.
Secondly, its goal is pure self-interest instead of virtue, and the signs of
self-interest are rivalry and dispute, which lead to crime.
Thirdly, its method is conflict instead of co-operation, and the signs of
conflict are contention and mutual repulsion, which lead to poverty.
Fourthly, its principle of relations between people is racism, and the signs
of racism are hatred, hostility and war, leading to death and destruction.
Fifthly, its objective is to excite lust and other appetites of the soul, and
the signs of this service is the transformation of humans into beasts,
leading to the perversion of humanity.
If most of the 'civilised' were turned inside out, you would see their
characters in the form of apes and foxes, snakes, bears and pigs.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1876-1960)

27.09.2018
THE HUMAN BEING is the 'qibla' or 'place of prostration' for the angels.
What does this mean?
It means, among other things, that your being, your body, is the centre of
Divine creative activity so vast, so comprehensive, that it is difficult to
imagine. Each moment, countless troops of angels are bringing to the
atoms and molecules of your body all the things they need for their
continued existence. Your brain alone is the focal point of angelic
coming-and-going so extensive that it cannot be computed. The neurons
in your brain 'fire' between five and fifty times a second, and each of
these neurons is 'carried' by an angel, who 'translates' the names and
attributes of God into concrete, external being. Your brain alone has up
to a thousand trillion neurons, which means that up to a thousand trillion
angels are active in your brain at any one second.
27.09.2018
THERE ARE TWO AREAS in which our Muslim scholars have failed us:
THE FIRST is the area of knowledge concerning the Creator.
THE SECOND is the area of social critique.
Why have they failed us in these areas? The only conclusions I can draw
are these:
FIRSTLY: They have failed us in the area of knowledge concerning God
because they are obsessed with knowing about the Creator's laws rather
than the Creator Himself, Whom they barely recognise and hardly
understand at all.
and
SECONDLY: They have failed us in the area of social critique because,
among other things, the current secular materialist system flatters their
egos and fattens their bank balances.
If I am wrong on either count, please correct me.

26.09.2018
A WORLD OF VEILS
Everything that the Creator does for you is 'veiled'. When the Creator
wishes to nurture you, food is the 'veil' of His nurturing. When the
Creator wishes to be compassionate to you, your child's smile is the 'veil'
on His compassion. When the Creator wishes to shelter you, your house
is the 'veil' on His sheltering, and so on. Everything we see in the world is
a 'veil' covering the Divine hand.
There are two main reasons why things are 'veiled'. The first is that since
we are finite, limited beings, living in a causal world, we cannot
experience or engage with the Creator directly, and so His working in the
world is veiled by causes. The second is so that people have the
opportunity to either accept His existence or reject it. That is why almost
everything is veiled.
There are a few things which are not veiled. One is existence itself and
another is life. There are no 'veils' on these gifts.

25.09.2018
I'VE HEARD MANY PARENTS say, "I won't impose my own beliefs on my
child; I will wait until my child is old enough to choose for himself or
herself."
So, dear parents, what will you do until your child is old enough to
choose? Will you remain totally silent, saying nothing? Will you remain
totally immobile, doing nothing? Because everything you say or do is,
whether you realize it or not, a reflection of what you believe. Everything
you say and do will in some way manifest how you see the world and
how you live your life.
Because you either live your life according to the laws of the Creator or
you live your life according to some other set of laws. There is no in-
between, no impartiality. The idea that your child is growing up in some
kind of neutral position is a sad, self-deceiving myth.
23.09.2018
NATURE is something printed; it is not
the printer. Nature is a picture; it is not
the painter. Nature is an order; it is not
the orderer; Nature is an object that is
acted upon; it is not the agent.
Nature is a principle with no power at
all. It is like a lace veil that covers the
hand of power of the One who creates
all things. Nature is a set of laws that have emerged from the names and
attributes of the Creator. And the 'laws of nature' have no external
existence; they have absolutely no power whatsoever.
Inspired by Said Nursi (r.a.)

22.09.2018
PRACTICAL THEOLOGY For
Readers Of The Book Of
Creation
The melon seed is like the
melon in miniature: it is an
index that includes, and points
to, everything that is in the
melon. And it is clear that
whatever has created the melon seed has also created the melon and
everything that is in it.
Similarly, the one who created you must also have created the universe
and everything that is in it. For you are like the universe in miniature: you
are an index that includes, and points to, everything that is in it.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (r.a.)
21.09.2018
WHEN THEE SUN shines on drops of water,
you can see a tiny sun in each of those
drops.
If creation is attributed to One Creator, His
reflection will be seen in countless things
at once, and this is easy for Him.
But if creation is attributed to 'nature' or 'causes', then each thing will
have to carry in itself the reasons for its own existence. This is absurd. It
would be like looking at countless drops of water in the sunlight and
imagining that each of the little suns inside those drops of water is an
actual tiny sun, rather than being the reflection of one Single Sun.
Materialism is irrational, superstitious and totally, utterly deluded.

18.09.2018
IMAM HUSAYN (r.a.) did not give his life for the sake of gold, power and
worldly greatness. He gave his life as a witness (shahid) to the oppression
of the ruling elite, who called people not to belief but to ignorance,
negligence and corruption.
"Imam Husayn's struggle against the Umayyads was a struggle between
Islam and nationalism. In other words, the Umayyads based their state
on Arab nationalism and put the bonds of nationalism before those of
Islam, therefore causing harm in two respects. Firstly, they offended
other nations and races, thus frightening them off. And secondly,
because the principles of racialism and nationalism do not follow that
which is just and right, they were tyrannical. For a ruler who is racist or
nationalist will prefer those of the same race or nation, and is unable to
act justly. Islam, however, rejects all forms of nationalism and racism. In
Islam there is no difference between an Abyssinian slave and a leader of
the Quraysh, once they have both accepted Islam. Islam has done away
with the tribalism of ignorance; the bonds of nationalism may not take
the place of the bonds of religion: if they do, then there will be no justice
and truth will disappear. Husayn (a.s.) took the bonds of religion as his
basis, and struggled against the nationalism and racism of the tyrants
until he attained the rank of witness-martyr."
(Second paragraph taken from Said Nursi (r.a.) )
17.09.2018
THE 'TEENAGER' was created in the 1920s by marketing gurus and other
social engineers. The aim was to bring into existence an artificial
demographic that could be targeted by the commercial sector and
encouraged to purchase and consume all manner of useless, unnecessary
gadgets, fads and fashion items designed to give those between the ages
of thirteen and nineteen the impression that (a) they were different; and
(b) that they were somehow special. And so, instead of a child being
prepared gradually and carefully by its parents for the arrival of maturity
and adulthood, children at the age of thirteen were now encouraged to
think of themselves as not quite children and not quite adult: an in-
between stage full of adventure, rebellion, financial semi-autonomy,
personal freedom, sexual activity without commitment and a whole new
- but totally false - social identity.
The creation of the teenager was, then, not only a commercial ploy but
also a classic case of divide and rule.
It is interesting to note that in the three most important languages
spoken by people in the Muslim world - Arabic, Persian and Turkish -
there are no words for 'teenager'.
16.09.2018
IT ONLY TAKES a little pushing aside...
(Please take the time to read carefully)
When a picture comes into your mind of one you have loved and lost,
either to death or to some other life, and the tears start to fall, blinding
your eyes, it only takes a little pushing aside...
What can this mean? It means this. When that picture is in your mind,
think about the reasons why you loved as you loved. You loved that
person because of the way your love made you feel. You loved that
person because of their beauty, their wisdom, their generosity, their
knowledge, their compassion, their general loveliness.
You loved that person because of the perfections they manifested. In
reality, you loved those perfections, and the way those perfections made
you feel. Perfections which are everywhere, and not just in the person
you loved. It may be that this person was a particularly unique
manifestation of those attributes, but the fact remains that those
attributes did not belong to that person.
The attributes of perfection belong to the One Who is perfect in every
way. The attributes of perfection belong to One Who is always there, the
One who has always been there and will always be there. In fact, the
person you loved was simply a manifestation of Him. If you push aside
the picture of the one you have loved and lost, you will see that beneath
it there is another Face.
So when a picture comes into your mind of the one you have loved and
lost, try pushing it aside, try seeing the Face of the Real Beloved. It only
takes a little pushing aside...

15.09.2018
DOES IT REALLY MATTER whether
Noah's flood was local or global?
We shouldn't get trapped in
technicalities, in details. We need
to understand the meaning of the
flood, the meaning of the 'ship that
saves', the meaning of Noah's beloved son 'escaping to the mountain'.
What does all of that mean? What significance does it have for our lives?
When am I Noah and when am I Noah's son? What does a mountain
mean for me? We need to stop busying ourselves with unimportant
detail, much of which it is impossible to know anyway.
There's an English saying: "The Devil is in the detail." It means that details
can be tricky, and that we should pay careful attention to them. I think,
with respect to centuries of English phraseology, that it can mean
precisely the opposite, and that it means if we pay too much attention to
detail, Satan will have us by the throat.

14.09.2018
ON FACEBOOK there is an 'Activity Log'. If you click on it, you can see
everything you've ever posted: all of your profile updates, everything
you've ever liked, everything you've ever written on someone else's wall.
Nothing has been left out.
One day - one day soon - we will all be given our 'Activity Log'. It will be a
record of everything we have ever said, thought, written or done. It will
show us everything we have ever 'written on the walls of others'.
Absolutely nothing will be left out.
If Facebook can record all of our activities on this simple social media
platform, surely the Creator of all things can record every heartbeat,
every whisper, every idea, every utterance, every word spoken in anger,
every instance of unkindness, every uncharitable thought, every lie,
every act of cruelty, every betrayal...
From today, Facebook looks very different to me.

13.09.2018
THERE IS NO DISPOSITION, an inner tendency, in all things, and it never
lies. In every seed there is an inclination to grow. If a seed could talk, it
would say, “I desire to be planted, and to grow, and to produce a flower.”
And what it says would be proven true. And in the depths of a bird’s egg,
the desire for life says, “With the Creator’s permission, I shall be a bird.”
And what it says is true. All creatures are inclined in some way, and in
some direction.
These inclinations are commands from the Creator: they are Divine
decrees. They are all creational laws, or what some mistakenly call ‘the
laws of nature’. Divine will directs all creatures in this way: all inclinations
conform to the commands of the Lord of all worlds. Attraction, and
inclination, are two polished mirrors in which the everlasting beauty of
the Creator is reflected.
Said Nursi (r.a.)

12.09.2018
WRONG does NOT become right just because the majority say so.
When morality is determined by the majority, it becomes clear that
democracy is just as toxic as autocracy.

11.09.2018
THE HUMAN INTELLECT (‘aql) is a noble instrument, created by the
Divine and given to us in order to perceive and accept the truth. And it is
only when the intellect is directed at the truth that it can serve mankind
and fulfil the purpose for which it was created. When the intellect is
applied to anything else but the truth, it becomes like a mercenary, ready
to serve any cause, however wicked and ignoble. Modern civilisation is
basically a war between the noble soldiers from the line of prophethood
and the intellectual terrorists from the line of the secular self.

10.09.2018
POPULAR PSYCHOLOGY is constructed around the notion that as long as
the Creator exists, man can never be free. The aim of most popular
psychology seems to be to rid the world of all sense of the Creator's
objective existence. More importantly, the aim seems to be to abolish
any idea that there are absolute moral laws. Popular psychology regards
right and wrong as being largely relative to the 'needs' of the individual.
And almost anything can be justified according to these private, personal,
individual needs. In fact, modern man lives with the constant fear that
objective moral laws will make a comeback and start to impose
themselves on his life. Consequently, modern man spends much of his
time reacting against any trace or hint of absolute moral authority.
Instead, man becomes his own moral arbiter. Man himself decides what
is right and wrong. 'Right and wrong' are thrown out the window and
instead 'legal and illegal' take their place. And the State, created in the
image of the secular individual, positions itself as the ultimate moral
authority.

09.09.2018
THE VISIT
The visitor is held in high regard in Muslim tradition, and to be visited is
to be favoured by the Creator. Why should this be?
Since a visitor comes to us from another place, to receive a visit is to
receive a reminder that we are different, that the bubble we inhabit is
different. The visit gives us an opportunity to look at ourselves, for it
reminds us that our home is a world that we have constructed in our own
image. But the visitor also gives us a glimpse into other worlds, other
possibilities. The visitor, and the visit, gives us the opportunity to take a
look at our world and also to look at the world of the visitor. This enables
us to see what is lacking in our life, and whether we can learn anything
from the life, and the world, of the visitor.
Thus a visitor always comes for a reason, and that reason is to teach and
to learn. We should see the visitor as a teacher of wisdom, either through
wisdom that they bring as wisdom themselves, unwrapped. Or as
wisdom that they bring in the form of lack of wisdom, wrapped in their
wrong behaviours.
The visitor comes to change something in your life, if only you could
understand. But mostly the visitor is here to remind you that you are
here as a visitor.
Every friend that we make in life is also a visitor from another realm,
another world, another reality. The coming from one place to another is
an important theme in humankind's spiritual life. The Creator shows
Himself to us in the form of different scenes and objects, each of which
speaks about Him in a way that we can understand. Otherwise, since He
is so totally unlike us, we would never be able to fathom Him. He speaks
to us in symbols, in correspondences, so that we can better understand
Him and conceptualise Him. Every new person in your life is a visitor from
some world, a traveller to your physical, emotional and spiritual shore.
The visitor usually comes with a gift. We should understand that the visit
itself is the gift. The visit itself is a visit from the One Who wishes you to
learn something.

07.09.2018
THE HUMAN HEART is never still, it is always moving, turning, longing.
The word 'qalb' (heart) is connected to "inqilab" (which means 'revolving'
or even 'revolution'). The heart is not meant to be still, because it is
always looking for what it has lost. Your outside may be still and calm,
relatively unchanging, but your heart is always looking for something,
seeking, going on journeys to furthest reaches, other galaxies even,
looking for what it needs to quieten it, to calm it, to make it still again,
tranquil in the unity of being that it misses so much.
The heart's desire is a wonderful thing. This desire is constant: as long as
humankind is humankind, the human heart will be characterised by
desire. The word 'desire' comes from the Latin 'desiderare', which
originally meant "to stop seeing". Our heart desires because it has
stopped seeing the One it loves and the only One that can make it happy,
that can calm and still it, that can give it peace. Tragedy happens when
the heart does not know the One it truly desires, for then it will attach
itself to anything and everything. The remedy for the aching heart is
remembrance (dhikr), which doesn't mean simply repeating the name of
the Beloved, although that might help. Remembrance means living in the
way that would please the Beloved if the Beloved were in the room next
to you. For that is His way. And until we get to meet the Beloved again, it
must be our way too.

06.09.2018
THERE CANNOT BE two rulers in a country, or two headsmen in a village,
two captains in a football team or two leaders of a mountain expedition.
The harmony, unity and equilibrium of the universe discounts totally the
notion of multiple creators. Even if millions of causes are involved in the
running of affairs, they work from one plan and towards one goal.
The cosmos is one, the Creator is One.

05.09.2018
ANGELS AND PLUMS
There is a Tradition which says “There are some angels that have either
forty, or forty thousand, heads. In each of these heads there are forty
thousand mouths, and with the forty thousand tongues in each of those
mouths they glorify God in forty thousand ways.”
An angel with forty thousand heads, six trillion tongues and over forty
thousand trillion ways of glorifying God is a rather difficult creature to
imagine, and would seem to befit the plot of a science fiction novel
rather than the Prophetic Traditions.
BUT then I remembered the plum tree in our garden. This tree began as a
single plum stone. But each year, at around this time, its branches bow
down, like outstretched hands, to give us hundreds and hundreds of
plums; a larger tree than ours could no doubt give thousands of plums,
each one with a seed and thus with the ability to produce a thousand
more plum trees, as well as countless thousands, and eventually millions,
of plums.
Our plum tree is a study in Divine unity. And it helps to explain the
Tradition about angels. It is nothing less than a theology lesson with
leaves and branches! It shows that when a seed is planted, Divine grace
and generosity create out of it countless thousands of fruits, and thus
countless more seeds which can then be planted to give endless bounties
of Divine mercy. The tree stands there at the same time every year,
holding out its arms, its hands full of sweet, juicy plums, each one a
miracle of artistry and compassion. If anyone doubts the mercy or the
power of the Creator, just come along to our garden in September and sit
for five minutes under the shade of the plum tree!

04.09.2018
WE ARE SECULARISING OURSELVES
We have to abandon the idea that actions are either 'religious' or
'worldly', because it tends to encourage the misperception that actions
are legitimately divisible into those which are done as part of 'worship'
(e.g. fasting, praying etc) and those which are done as part of our
engagement with the world (e.g. driving, shopping, washing etc.). The
only division that we as believers can accept is a division between the
'worshipful' and the 'profane'. Actions are done either for the sake of the
Creator or for the sake of the self, or other selves. This includes both acts
of worship and other acts which are not usually included in the category
of acts of worship.
In other words, all acts - all actions - are capable of being made
'worshipful'. If I go to church, or to the mosque, to worship in God's
name, then that is a worshipful action. But if I go to the church or to the
mosque to be seen by my neighbours as a devout person, then I am
going there not for the sake of the Creator but for the sake of social
acceptance. Similarly, if I drive to the shops to buy food to feed my
family, and I do this in the knowledge that feeding my family is my
Divinely-ordained duty, then that act of driving and shopping becomes
worshipful by default.
In other words, all actions - apart from those which are categorically
forbidden - are inherently capable of being made worshipful. To accept
the division of the 'worshipful' and the 'profane' is in keeping with
scripture. To believe instead in 'the religious' and 'the worldly' is to
secularise our faith. And there is nothing more toxic to the soul, and to
society, than secularised faith.

03.09.2018
ONE TRADITION says that the late night (isha) prayer should be
performed as late as possible; another Tradition says that it is best not to
speak after the late night prayer has been offered. I'm sure that there are
lots of instances of wisdom in these Traditions, but for years I had no idea
what they might be....until, quite recently, a discussion with friends led to
one possible instance of wisdom. Like in all of the obligatory prayers, the
very last words uttered in the 'isha prayer are, 'And may peace and the
mercy of Allah be with you." And so praying the 'isha prayer as late as
possible, and not speaking afterwards, means that the last words that
one says, or hears, before sleeping, is a blessing of peace and mercy. And
since one does not know whether one will wake up in the morning, those
words may be the last words one ever speaks or hears...
3.09.2018
THERE IS NO CURE for death, because death does not exist. That which
does exist is fear of death. And there is a cure for that.

02.09.2018
A PERSON who is a bit of an outsider, someone who is ‘maladjusted’,
who doesn’t “fit in” the world – this person always has the opportunity
to find himself, to discover who he really is, to unlock the treasury that is
the meaning of the self, and of creation. But someone who is “well
adjusted”, who “fits in” well – that person has little or no opportunity to
find himself. Instead he gets to become a politician or a bank manager.
Please, Lord, do not let me 'fit in' with this world or get used to it. Please
do not make me 'well-adjusted' or 'one of the crowd'.
Amin, O Creator of Misfits and Seekers of Meaning.

01.09.2018
ISLAM is not 'a way of life'. It is the way of life. The whole of the universe
is in submission, and so Islam is the default setting of creation. There is
no alternative, so it cannot be a way.
Only the way. The only way.